Abstract
In the fall of 2022, I participated in an independent research project under the mentorship of Dr.Kloepper in the Ecological Acoustics and Behavior lab. I decided to delve into a project that shed light on an underrepresented animal, bats. Bats are proficient at producing echolocation pulses that they utilize to their advantage to hunt and navigate cluttered areas. I investigated how Tadarida brasiliensis (the Brazilian free-tailed bat), that lives in colonies of thousands, may shift their echolocation so they can distinguish their own calls from the cacophony of sound when flying all together. A trained Harris’s hawk carried a microphone/camera unit and flew through a bat swarm to record the soundscape of the swarm as it passed through. With the audio and visual data synced, I compared the bats’ calls between the outside and the middle of the swarm. I found that the overall acoustic environment shifted, generating more energy in higher frequencies when in the middle of the swarm, while the outside remained in a lower range. This kind of behavior may aid bats in differentiating their sounds from the bats next to them in a crowded area, allowing them to live and move in large aggregations with ease.
Publication Date
Spring 2023
Journal Title
Inquiry Journal
Mentor
Laura Kloepper
Publisher
Durham, NH: Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research, University of New Hampshire
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Eveland, Keegan, "Blind as a Bat: Acoustic Differences within a Bat Swarm Soundscape Based on Location" (2023). Inquiry Journal. 9.
https://scholars.unh.edu/inquiry_spring_2023/9